State digest

Deal reached to ban plastic grocery bags in Calif.

LOS ANGELES - Key California legislators have reached an agreement that could lead to a statewide ban on carry-out plastic bags at supermarkets, liquor stores and pharmacies by 2016.

Democratic state Sen. Kevin de Leon on Los Angeles said Thursday the deal balances environmental concerns with the need to preserve jobs.

Los Angeles and nearly 100 cities and counties in the state have enacted bans on single-use plastic bags.

If approved, the compromise bill would extend a similar prohibition across the state.

The local laws would remain in effect.

A summary of the bill says supermarkets must stop using the bags by July 2015, and the ban would extend to smaller stores in 2016.

The proposal would use $2 million to help firms that produce plastic bags convert to manufacturing reusable bags.

California seeks 2-year delay on prison crowding

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown asked federal judges Thursday to give the state two more years to reduce prison crowding to the level set by the court, and said inmates could be released early if the state fails to meet its goals.

The proposal presented to the special three-judge panel calls for the court to appoint a compliance officer to choose which inmates would be freed.

The state faces an uncertain spring deadline to reduce the prison population by more than 5,000 inmates to comply with the court's population cap.

Brown wants the deadline extended to Feb. 28, 2016. He proposed that the state meet interim population reduction deadlines in June 2014 and February 2015.

Two years is "the minimum length of time needed to allow new reform measures to responsibly draw down the prison population while avoiding the early release of inmates," the administration said in its seven-page court filing.

The judges had ordered the administration and attorneys representing inmates to propose separate plans by Thursday after they failed to reach agreement on how best to reduce crowding.

Inmates' attorneys said in their four-page filing that the state should be ordered to meet the population cap by May of this year. The filing recommended that the state comply by sending more inmates to private prisons in other states, something the state said would not be necessary under its proposal. The state currently houses about 8,900 inmates housed in out-of-state facilities.

The inmates' lawyers also asked the court to appoint a compliance officer to order inmates released, if necessary.

Autopsy: Officer died of gunshot wound to chest

OAKLAND - The San Francisco Bay Area transit officer who was shot and killed by a fellow officer while they searched an apartment died of a single gunshot wound to the chest, according to autopsy results released Thursday.

Bay Area Rapid Transit police Sgt. Tom Smith was wearing a bulletproof vest when he was shot on Tuesday, but the bullet struck an area that was not covered, Alameda County sheriff's spokesman J.D. Nelson said.

Authorities were still trying to determine whether the other officer's weapon discharged accidentally or if the officer mistook Smith for someone else, Nelson said. Either way, it was an accident, he added.

Police have not named the officer who shot Smith.

Smith, 42, was shot while authorities searched a one-bedroom apartment in Dublin for a smartphone, laptop bag and related items stolen during an armed holdup at a train station in Oakland.

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State digest

Key California legislators have reached an agreement that could lead to a statewide ban on carry-out plastic bags at supermarkets, liquor stores and pharmacies by 2016.